


as we stand at the edge of the world

by b3rryjunki3



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Future Fic (but only by a few years), Getting Together, M/M, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Trans Male Character, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:34:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25915933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b3rryjunki3/pseuds/b3rryjunki3
Summary: It takes sacrifice to get what you want from life. For both Aphelios and Sett, it's crucial aspects of their humanity that are lost to the uncaring demands of fate. A childhood, gone. A family, gone. A simple voice? Going, going, gone.But when Aphelios arrives in Noxus, on the hunt for information regarding the now-missing heretic Diana, he finds himself feeling things he hasn't felt since... well, ever. Basic human connections here are far more complex and binding than he'd ever experienced before.One such connection is to an arrogant half-Vastayan who falls head-over-heels for him at first sight.As Aphelios immerses himself deeper into the underground of Noxus, searching for any clues towards Diana's whereabouts, he draws closer to this enigmatic man who calls himself "The Boss." Both men find solace in each other from the organized chaos that is their regular lives- and soon, they begin to question just what it is they're doing with their lives in the first place.
Relationships: Aphelios/Sett (League of Legends)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 85





	1. purely by chance

There’s a very particular kind of sadness, Aphelios has observed, from a loss you’ve seen coming long before it washes over you. An undercurrent of relief thrums first, the weight of anticipation lifting off your shoulders- then the rush of grief drowns it out, silent in its swift, aching destruction. After the crash of the wave comes the tide. Pulling, pulling, pulling. Unhurried and assured in its ways. It knows you will be pulled. It doesn’t even have to try.

This is how Aphelios feels when he realizes he will never speak again.

There is nothing ceremonious or even special about the day it happens. He drinks his noctum, greets Alune, feels her presence like a shiver he can’t quite shake out of his spine. The poison burns sharply, but it always does. He barely feels it anymore. The first time he’d drank noctum was so, so long ago. He’d collapsed to the floor of the yawning cavern where the flowers quietly blossomed, in so much pain the entire world took a breath in his stead. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before. A thousand knives sliced through every atom of his being, then set fire to the veins they’d split. Aphelios had thought he would die for sure. But he didn’t. And when the pain had passed, nothing he would ever feel from that moment on would compare.

So it wasn’t a shock to him to feel the cool slide of a liquid blade down his throat. He was as numb to it as anyone else would be to their own hair brushing their cheek. Natural and insignificant. The noctum always stole his voice while it was still thrumming in his system. He would just have to wait.

_ Brother! _ Alune coos happily. Aphelios tries to remember what she looks like. He thinks he still knows.  _ Have you learned anything new? _

Always right to the chase, his sister. Aphelios shakes his head, knowing Alune will feel the motion somehow. He can practically feel her thinking it over. The fire he’s made in his little forest clearing camp plays a nice warm contrast to the coolness of Alune’s connection.

_ I was so hoping we’d find something from that coastal guard, _ Alune sighs. Aphelios remembers how hot her blood was when he cut her throat. It was probably still staining the warped boards of the rickety port he’d cornered her in.  _ At this rate we might as well pair with that caustic little Solari knight. Maybe one of us would finally track Diana down. _

Aphelios isn’t sure if Alune is using the word “caustic” correctly, but even if he could say anything about it, he wouldn’t. Alune is stubborn in her faith  _ least  _ of all. For a Lunari, that’s really saying something. He would also rather die than work with Leona, and this he does make known by scuffing his boots sullenly in the loamy dirt. The soil in Rokrund is so much…  _ wetter  _ than around Targon. The salt of the ocean in the air, though, is familiar.

_ I know, I know… _ Alune trails off. Aphelios can feel her pacing, even if she might not be doing it physically. Her mind works quickly- both of theirs do, it’s what makes them such a deadly pair. Aphelios waits patiently for her to sort her thoughts out. He closes his eyes and feels the cold night air on his face. Bugs and frogs chirp and grate out their songs around him, and every now and then a tiny animal rustles through the underbrush, skittish and quick. The dry wood crackles by his feet, slowly melting against the smooth stones he’d circled it with, curling away listlessly into thin, lazy smoke.

_ Maybe we’d get more headway…  _ Alune muses aloud. The ghostly sensation of a tapping fingertip tickles Aphelios’ chin.  _ Hm. Maybe we need to be playing a longer game here. _

Aphelios opens his eyes and tips his head back to observe the stars above. The waning moon is but a silver thread in the inky tapestry of the night sky. Tomorrow he will not be able to converse with his sister. She had better get a move on with her explanation. Aphelios may have been trained to be a living weapon, but he is still inhabiting a very human body, and human bodies, unfortunately, need sleep to function properly.

_ What if we got in good with the underground instead of just interrogating them? _

Aphelios sits up a little straighter at that. The toe of his boot digs a bit more into the soft earth. The underground?

_ Noxus is a cesspool.  _ Alune’s nose clearly wrinkles, and Aphelios recalls a faint memory of being fond of that, once.  _ But where the underground scene is most active, so is information at its freest. Willing it can be paid for, of course. As long as you give them what they want, they won’t care what you do with it. _

Aphelios tips his head to the side, simulating curiosity.

_ From our observations, Noxians have been crude, but respect power no matter who displays it. If you hide your markings, you could blend in easily as an immigrant looking to make a name for himself, couldn’t you? _

Aphelios nods warily. He’s not sure he likes the idea of hiding his Lunari heritage. He was proud of it-  _ is  _ proud of it. Then again, as long as it’s for his mission, anything could be forgiven.

_ I think you should lay low in Noxus for a while. All our leads have been hinting towards here. Don’t make a scene, don’t draw attention for now. Let any suspicions about you die out. Then you can slip lower without anyone batting an eye- learn as much as you can about the underground scene and get into it as quietly as you can. We’ll figure out where to look for information then. _

Alune’s focus is as blinding as an eclipse. Aphelios nods again. He’s not bad at coming up with plans, but he’s nowhere near as good as Alune is. He’s been following her unwavering lead for upwards of half a decade anyway- why stop now?

The connection starts to strain like a pulled seam. Aphelios hasn’t been focusing on the pain, but it’s alright. There’s nothing more to discuss.  _ I’ll see you again soon, brother, _ Alune says, even though they haven’t truly seen each other for a single second of these five years. It’s just another thing Aphelios won’t question her about.  _ I love you _ . Then she’s gone, and Aphelios watches the fire slowly fade into sleepy embers, wondering if he’ll ever get to discover what she looks like again.

The smoke has long since cleared by the time he realizes his throat hasn’t un-tightened from the noctum’s grasp. Something like a dull, hazy dread curves around his neck, slips between the fingers carefully prodding the skin there.

He opens his mouth to speak, to whisper.

Not a sound comes out.

For the first time in five long, long years, Aphelios feels something, and it’s nothing but a sorrowful finality.

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

Sett can’t sleep.

This is and of itself is not unusual- he’s a big man with lots of energy, and when he goes all day without punching someone’s lights out to scratch that itch, it can really build up. What’s bothering him is that he  _ didn’t  _ go all day without punching someone’s lights out. No, in fact he  _ did  _ punch  _ several  _ someones’ lights out. Like,  _ all  _ the way out. Had to be trotted out on stretchers. Might as well have just dumped them straight into their coffins.

Sett had quelled a little… “disagreement” about the till payments today. Ratty new hires getting a little too uppity. Wanting more than they were worth. He’d been able to wipe the floor with them and barely broke a sweat, and his reward was renewed respect within his remaining employees, securing his seat as boss of the arena even more tightly.

He’d even gotten a nice lay out of it, a tall, lithe Noxian man with a babyface- didn’t seem a day over 18, despite his exasperation at the observation- who left the loveliest little scratches all over Sett’s back. “Your performance is always so impressive,” the man had fawned, and won him over with his long legs, or something along those lines- Sett isn’t too particular about who he lets into his bed. He’s generous like that.

Why, then, the lack of sleep? Everything about today had gone right.  _ Good _ , even. The prized fighters continued to win prizes. The underdogs continued to gain favor and interest, drawing in crowds, and, with them, plenty of money. No snotty Noxian higher-up had come sniffing around the whole establishment in a long while.

The clock in his momma’s living room downstairs chimes twice, soft and demure.

Sett doesn’t know if he can really keep doing this forever.

He’s half-Vastayan, so, of course, the normal workings of time don’t always apply to him. He will outlive everyone he meets if things keep going well for him. Everyone except his mother. It’s a tough thing, thinking about the difference in their mortalities. Sometimes he loathes his parents for it. Loathes his mother, briefly, for loving someone whose lifespan couldn’t even compare to her own. Mostly hates his father. Sett feels like he’s hated his father since before he could spell his own name. Whether or not he ever loved him is something too painful to think about, so he doesn’t.

His mother, though, isn’t as easy a thought to avoid. Sett sees her every week, tries to watch the way she gracefully ages. Nothing really changes. She eats up his lies about the good he did out in the world, what a hardworking son he’s being, how much of a difference he’s made. He lets a pouch heavy with coin drop into her thin hands like clockwork, twice a month, never  _ too  _ much but always more than enough. He’s so good at lying.  _ Built an orphanage today, Ma,  _ he’s said.  _ For the orphans. _

Sett thinks about how alone she is. In the capitol, sure, Noxians might be more open to Vastayans and their various bastard sons. But south of the Bastion, where they’ve been able to finally settle, isn’t as accommodating. Mostly they’re left well alone. Wariness is the general feeling towards the pair of them- a mystery that everyone is more than content to leave unsolved. But Sett really does wonder if his mother is happy here. She is frail, and doesn’t leave the house much. She doesn’t socialize, doesn’t ask around about any “orphanages,” doesn’t brag about her son’s accomplishments like a mother should. She is quiet and loving and gentle and everything that her child isn’t anymore.

The cemented ceiling is as blank as the gaze Sett fixes on it, lost in thought. His momma’s house isn’t extravagant, but no house around here is. They’re built to withstand sandstorms, wars, and the endless march of time. They’re immovable. Settled.

Sett idly adjusts himself again on the too-small mattress. What would life be like, if it wasn’t like this? He thinks of the Noxian man from earlier in the evening. How easy it was for either of them to take that moment in his bed, but how their justifications couldn’t be more different. For the man, Sett imagines, it was easy because of its impermanence. It wouldn’t mean anything. His life was too short to waste time giving meaning to it. It was fun, a fling- practice, really, for someone he would  _ actually _ care about in his future.

But Sett could do meaningless things because time stretched before him in ways it didn’t do for anyone else around. Because he was the boss. Because he would always be the boss, until he wasn’t, and when was that day coming? Not today. So he would do what he wanted today. He would bed a cute, nervous man one night and a sly, beguiling woman the next, he would drink heavily in celebration of a victory, any victory, and sweat out the hangover in the morning, he would come home every week to his mother and lie and lie and  _ lie _ .

The clock chimes for three in the morning.

Sett wonders when he got so caught up in giving his life meaning that he started taking it away from his mother. Wonders if he’s the only meaning she’s got left.

He doesn’t sleep a wink.

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

The roads from Rokrund to the Varju Mountains are long but uneventful. Aphelios is grateful for this- it gives him time to think as he travels. He eats lightly, mostly root vegetables he unearths, and travels even more so, just a flask of noctum at his hip and a knife at his thigh. He’s well aware that the new moons are when he’s at his most vulnerable with no way to contact Alune. He drinks whatever he can find, and, with his hood pulled tight, in a small town dwarfed beneath the Varju range, trades some silver buttons from his coat for a small pressed round of heavy face makeup. Just a few careful smears from his fingertip is enough to cover the dark crescent tattooed on his face. He leaves his lip tattoo alone, figuring it wouldn’t as easy to cover, or worth it in Noxus to begin with. No one here would care.

The woman selling the makeup had also laid out several wine-dark presses of lip shine. Aphelios felt strangely tempted to sacrifice another button for one, but it wasn’t anywhere near necessary, so he didn’t. He tries not to think about what it means to be developing personal wants after going so long without any, and brushes it off as a fluke.

Aphelios is a fast traveler, but he’s still only human. It takes days of near-constant walking to get to the Varju range, and days more to cross it. He goes hungry a few nights with thin rations, but powers through it, praying to the moon for strength. It makes him more resilient, anyway. Sometimes the Lunari would make him fast, then put him through harsh training for weeks afterward as he barely recovered. Even at his worst, he must be at his best.

The closer he gets to Noxus’ capitol, the more claustrophobic the architecture gets, especially once he’s finally crossed the Varju range. The streets of the towns he passes through get more and more winding, the houses thicker and more towering. Everything feels like a maze, but it’s somehow comforting. It reminds him of the cave systems of Targon, although it’s significantly less organic. The Noxian people are refreshing varied, too- a wide mix of skin colours, physiques, and ages, although the disparity between the poor and the rich is quite noticeable. And, of course, they are all unwaveringly loyal to their government, but who wouldn’t be, when dissent is met with an iron grip crushing their throat?

It’s not so different, Aphelios thinks, from his unwavering loyalty to his faith. He’s not sure what to make of that, so he makes nothing at all.

On the other side of the Varju, it’s much less acceptable to barter for goods and services with items. But a display of loyalty and dedication is highly regarded, and Aphelios is able to hold a short position at an inn doing odd jobs for the elderly keeper in exchange for a humble room and plenty of food. The Noxian people have a surprisingly robust menu, full of hearty meats, thick starch vegetables and a wide range of spices. Every day for several weeks Aphelios does his makeup, checks the list tacked to his door for his tasks, and completes them well before lunch. He eats, pretends to enjoy the food despite not being able to taste much, and picks up on more and more of the language, Va-Nox, which thankfully has a fairly common hand-sign dialect. It’s probably to aid in silent warfare. The locals are curious about him and like to push, but he holds his ground and clumsily signs that he comes to Noxus from a far-away land seeking prosperity and a secure life. He doesn’t know very much about Noxian relations with the Solari, but he’d sooner renounce the Lunari themselves than take a chance on asking strangers about it outright.

After he wolfs down lunch, Aphelios disappears from the inn for the rest of the day (this makes him uncomfortably popular with the innkeeper’s granddaughter, who is nosy and flirtatious in a way that makes him wary). He doesn’t make any money from his inn work, but he’s able to miraculously trade his traveling clothes for some more standard Noxian attire. His clothes weren’t Lunari, just local to Targon, but they were foreign enough to spark a tailor’s interest in studying them, and she agreed to the trade easily enough. Able to blend in easily as just another Noxian, Aphelios spends a lot of his time in a nearby city’s rather impressive library. From the outside, he couldn’t even tell it _ was  _ one- it looked more like a fortress than anything else. Then again, so did every building here.

As it turns out, Noxians are very prideful on their worldly knowledge. “Hold your enemy closer than your friend,” or something like that. The city library is stocked to the ceiling with scrolls and books and paintings depicting Noxus and the surrounding nations. As Aphelios quickly learns, alongside his rapidly expanding knowledge of the Va-Nox alphabet, most of it is propaganda. The losses in Ionia, if even mentioned in historical records, are sickly sweet with sugarcoating. However, it’s a great insight into how Noxus society functions and sees itself.

‘Noxus is powerful there is no doubt. But the people are very satisfied and do not know the lies they are told,’ he hastily scrawls on newspaper he’s scrounged one night. Alune’s chilly presence is like a draft in the small inn room, almost breathing softly over his shoulder. ‘But it is not hard to recognize propaganda when you’re looking for it. Anyone here could if they wanted to.’

Alune is quick to process her brother’s rather elegant chicken-scratch.  _ Anyone dissatisfied here is trapped, and would be looking for other ways to get their anger out… are there a lot of uprisings against local militia? _

Aphelios shrugs. ‘Have not heard of or seen any.’

_ Hmm.  _ Alune is silent for a moment, and Aphelios’ mind recalibrates to the gentle camaraderie of the dining area downstairs. The people here are lovely, despite everything. Well. Almost all the people. The innkeeper’s granddaughter has, dreadfully, still not gotten the very obvious message of disinterest. Aphelios has no time for any woman besides Alune and, eventually, Diana. He tries to recall if he ever had time for flirtations in his entire life and draws a complete and resolute blank.

_ Well, definitely don’t go starting anything just to see if the locals will join in _ , Alune jests, rousing Aphelios from his thoughts. He cracks the tiniest smile, faintly amused, and Alune seems immensely pleased by it.  _ It is nice to see you smile, brother. _

Aphelios pauses, and writes, ‘It is nice to smile.’

He spends the rest of his waking hours puzzled about the buzz of  _ feeling _ he’s been experiencing in Noxus. How when the innkeeper hobbles up the stairs in the morning, and tries to be quiet despite his crude false leg, it squeezes his lungs of air. Aphelios is a stranger to this man, but the kindness extended both ways has created a bridge that he would feel loath to burn. For so long, Aphelios has only had Alune, and his mission, and the feeling of moonstone against his roughened palms. Perhaps these feelings are just exacerbated because he’s been so lonely for so long.

And yet, the admittance of loneliness only makes his chest even tighter. He sleeps feeling like a soft hand has curled around his heart, holding it in careful hostage.

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

Sett’s head is starting to swim. They’ve been sauntering (or rather stumbling) around to seedy bars from city to city for  _ hours  _ now, and his Vastayan blood can tolerate a fair amount of alcohol, but not  _ this  _ much. His entourage is rowdy and raucous, trying to pick pointless fights with other bar-goers who have had too many drinks and not enough else going on their life. Even in Noxus-occupied Navori, Ionia, where Sett and his momma used to live, people were never this noisy at night. People were never this…  _ human _ , over there. He still doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, even after all these years.

Sett doesn’t enter the ring often, but when he does, he wins, and when he wins, he  _ parties _ . Loses himself in the heat of the moment, but it’s one moment after another, and soon it’s one drink after another, and after that he’s lost count and any reason to care. There’s someone’s hand on his hip, and he turns to laugh at one of his lieutenants, baring his sharp teeth. She bares hers back in a wicked grin and slips her hand lower to squeeze. They’ve had a thing, here and there. Neither of them hope to gain anything from it besides a fun time, which is what tonight looks like it’s going to be if they way her hand hasn’t moved means anything.

But maybe it doesn’t.

Nothing’s really meant a whole lot to Sett, lately. Nothing but his momma and his money.

He and his posse find their way through the dim, winding streets of a small town to an even smaller inn, its bright, welcoming lights like a beacon in the dark of night, bouncing against imposing architecture and stark stone. Sett doesn’t remember much of what occurs between his huge frame entering the inn’s bar area and another round of something smooth and frothy entering his poor liver. He’s sure he’s been paying handsomely- the waitstaff keeps looking at him in awe and whispering among themselves, gesturing towards the cashbox. He doesn’t care at all. He can afford it.

What he suddenly cannot afford, however, is a  _ very _ angry man at the end of the counter recognizing Sett’s ruddy mug.

See, Sett doesn’t make enemies. He doesn’t! People come to his arena, and challenge him, and make an enemy of him all on their own. He has a reputation and he upholds it. When people don’t like it, it’s  _ their  _ problem for not being able to tear him down. Sett is undisputed, and he’ll stay that way. Provided he isn’t actually as drunk as he suspects he might be.

The man sways in Sett’s vision, and Sett can’t tell which of them is actually moving, but he pretends everything is perfectly under control. He recognizes the guy as a sore loser who’s challenged him not once, but  _ twice _ . He’s really lucky to be alive right now, but he seems to be cruisin’ for a bruisin’ by the way he’s shouting and pointing at Sett, and oh, wait, is that a  _ gun-? _

Sett’s crowd tackles and pummels the guy before he can even properly aim, but a fire rings out all the same and scares the waitstaff half to death. The bullet barely scraped a chair. It doesn’t matter. Sett’s hair stands on end and he growls, a low, inhuman thing, and the guy scrambles his way out of the dogpile and promptly out the door. He’s heard that noise once before, and it ended with his skull nearly getting cracked like an egg against Sett’s own knee.

The poor girls who’d been serving their drinks are crying, and Sett might be the leader of an underground fighting ring and budding Noxian crime syndicate, but even in his addled state of mind he knows the best thing to do is apologize, pay them well, and get the absolute hell out.

He gets through the first two steps.

The innkeeper, an old man with sharp eyes and a stubby false leg, has hurried down by now, and fearful patrons are peeking down the stairs with eyes as wide as dinner plates. Sett lets his slightly less inebriated lieutenants do the talking, explaining away a bad grudge over “an old fight” and even turning over the firearm to the innkeeper. They all might have blood on each and every single one of their hands, but hey- this old man and his guests hadn’t done anything. No reason to disturb the peace even more. He passes over a bulging sack of coin to pay the guy for his silence, which he is more than happy to accept. Then Sett straightens his clothes, turns to leave, looks up for smallest of glances-

Sees the most beautiful man he’s ever laid eyes on in his life watching him from the stairs, long legs and soft black hair and the dark, intriguing stripe of a lip tattoo-

And promptly asks for a room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can find me on twitter @apollyonights, not to toot my own horn or nothin but i do make some sick art sometimes
> 
> leave a kudos or comment if you enjoy the story so far!! i'm excited to keep writing this, it's my first time forcing myself to be patient enough to write slow burn lmAO


	2. wanderers

Aphelios has been watching this rowdy new tenant with mounting distaste. He picked this small inn to work at because it was out of the way, homely, and best of all,  _ quiet. _ But this man- Sed? Seth? It’s hard to catch in such curiously accented Va-Nox- keeps bringing in more and more questionable characters. Sure, business is booming, and the innkeeper is finally able to actually pay Aphelios as staff in exchange for a bigger workload. None of the other staff are complaining at all, because this man tips well. Aphelios is also, unfortunately, extremely aware that several of them have bedded this man. Their rooms are right next to each other. The first time Alune had overheard the moaning, Aphelios was so embarrassed the connection almost snapped right then and there.

Emotions- right. He’s been feeling them. It’s a bizarre experience. Aphelios has been trying to fill his head with knowledge, reading from the library in the city over, which he’s learned is called Weide. The town he’s been residing in is Geast, the biggest city to the north is Sturm, the inn is called Heimstatte, so on and so on. The more Noxian words he stuffs in his brain, the less room he has for processing the changes his psyche is going through. He knows Alune knows, but he isn’t ready to explain it to her. He has no explanation to begin with.

Right now, though, he’s pretty sure he’s feeling annoyance.

He had just finished his last few tasks and is halfway out the door when a large hand lands on his shoulder, stopping him. Aphelios turns, and of course, it’s the brute himself. ‘What do you want?’ he signs, and hopes his facial expression conveys how snappish he wants the sentence to come out. Signing still isn’t easy.

The man just blinks. “Oh, you’re deaf?” His hand won’t move.

Aphelios shrugs it off as pointedly as he can. ‘No, mute.’ He would  _ really  _ like to get to the library. There was a great text detailing the Ionian losses in much better detail than they usually were, and he wants to pick up where he left off. ‘Why would you ask a deaf person that out loud anyway?’

“You have a point!” the man laughs. It’s deep and only a little disingenuous. “Anyway, where you headin’?”

‘Out.’ Aphelios does not have time for this. He attempts to shove past… surely it’s Seth… and is a bit surprised when he’s let go without any more manhandling. Which is good, because Aphelios knows how to knock the wind out of someone from this position exactly seven different ways.

“Can I go with you?” the man has the absolute gall to ask, animalistic ears perking up like a puppy’s.

Aphelios fixes him with what he hopes is his most withering gaze. ‘I don’t even know you.’

“Name’s Sett!” He splays his hand over his chest proudly. (Oh, so it’s not Seth.) “There, now you know me. Could I take you out?”

‘No means no,’ Aphelios signs over his shoulder, already hurrying as far away as he can. ‘Go bed someone else.’ To his credit, Sett turns a bit red at that. But only a bit. Aphelios doesn’t care. He’s long gone.

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

Sett is puzzled about Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome. See, ever since he secured his powerful position, followed by his ever-expanding fortune, things have tended to go the way Sett wants them to. So when his latest target of “affection” isn’t the least bit impressed by or interested in him at all, Sett doesn’t know what to do about it.

He figures pretty quickly that the guy really must not be into him. Not even a little bit. Which is weird, because  _ everyone's _ a little bit into him, right? All of the guy’s coworkers certainly are. Sett spends a week at the cramped Heimstatte Inn and sees the mysterious odd-job man a total of twice. Once on the stairs, and once before he definitely scared him off for good. Sett knows Mr. Handsome returns late at night, because he can hear the door softly shutting when the rest of the inn is sleeping peacefully, but he doesn’t see him again, and after that week he gives up and goes home.

Sett moves on, thinking that was probably the last he’d ever see of the guy.

Boy, was he wrong.

Sett’s lounging in his office one day, about two weeks later, looking over the upcoming match-ups in some of the more prestigious fights he’ll be hosting over the next month. Yeah, he does paperwork. Sometimes. It’s a necessary evil to keep interest in the arena running as high as possible.

His lieutenant Nikol bursts in through the door, clearly frazzled. “Boss, I got-” she has to catch her breath. “Got news for ya.”

Sett’s interest is undoubtedly piqued- his ears are as straight as his back as he stands tall to greet her. It’s not often that Nikol is winded. Her hair is tangled, too- did she run here? “What happened?”

“It’s your dream boy, Boss.” Her grin is as sharp as ever. “The one from the inn?”

Sett winces. “He’s not comin’ after me, is he?”

“What? No, you’ll never believe this.” Nikol leans over his wide desk, planting her palms flat against it. “He’s a goddamn  _ assassin  _ if I’ve ever seen one.”

“He is not,” Sett says immediately. “You’re pullin’ my leg, Nik.”

“Am  _ not _ !” Nikol has never looked this smug for as long as Sett’s known her. “Kid got in a barfight after someone tried to rob the old bastard that owns the place. Pulled a weapon on him- I was there gettin’ one of their fireballs, I swear they put something in those, I can’t stay away- but anyway, robber pulls a knife or something on the old guy, and the kid  _ loses _ it…”

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

Aphelios killed a man. No one told him to. The man wasn’t on a hit-list for his mission, wasn’t a danger to the Lunari, no, none of that.

The man was a danger to someone Aphelios, despite everything he’s ever been trained to be, cares about.

So he killed him.

He walks calmly to the kitchens as the floors get soaked in crimson. He fills a flask with water, a hip pouch with bread and cured meat. He tucks away what little money he earned into his deep trouser pockets. The inn is dead silent, the waitstaff watching, frozen in shock. The white noise in Aphelios’ head is somehow even quieter, drowning out the sounds of his own calm breaths. The innkeeper has a look in his eyes that makes Aphelios want to tear his own chest open, if only to let the pain bleed out of the aching cavern where his heart has started to grow back. 

It hurts. It hurts so much he can’t bear it.

He steps through the door for the last time, and leaves it all behind.

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

Whoever this guy is, assassin or not, he’s way too good at not being found.

Sett’s sent lackey after lackey on manhunts for his “Dream Boy,” as Nikol keeps calling him, and Sett’s starting to think maybe he really was just a crazy dream after all. From the inn in Geast their only lead is to the library in the next city over, but the employees there can only point them right back to the inn. It’s like the guy materialized right there on the hardwood floors, broom in hand, then dissipated back into smoke the second things went south.

It drives Sett  _ nuts _ . He can’t get Dream Boy out of his head now that he knows what he’s capable of. He might not like Sett very much, but surely being an arena fighter would pay better than that crappy little inn, right? Sett tries not to be mad at Nikol for not recruiting him right away, but it wasn’t like she could have known he was going to ghost everyone like that. How could anyone have known?

As questioning begins to feather out into the homes and businesses surrounding the inn, though, the mystery only deepens. Before a certain date, no one had ever even  _ heard _ of Dream Boy, and it isn’t until they come across a certain tailor that a few pieces of his scrambled puzzle start coming together. He’s from Targon, or at least his clothes were. Everyone they’ve been able to find that met the guy says the exact same thing about him- he was quiet, he was from far away, and he came to find a better life.

It just doesn’t track in Sett’s head why a man trying to find a better life would  _ murder _ someone so soon after arriving, especially in a completely random incident. He knows Targon is remote, and can have harsh living conditions, but rugged terrain doesn’t just make someone a killer. And if Dream Boy really is from Targon, what the  _ hell  _ is he doing appearing out of nowhere in the middle of Noxus?

Sett, Nikol, and another of his lieutenants, Pierz, all come to the same conclusion: Dream Boy was here for something, or someone. But who or what that could be remains completely shrouded. Pierz has his own handpicked squadron of particularly crafty lowlifes he promises a raise to if they can find any more information regarding Dream Boy, mostly because that was what Sett had promised  _ him _ . Days pass, then weeks, then it’s been a month and Sett is frankly too frustrated to focus any more efforts on hunting down what may as well have been a mirage, born from the heat of too many drinks and the growing loneliness he tried to drown with them. He calls it off, fucks Pierz to an inch of his life as an apology for wasted effort, and tries to forget Dream Boy ever happened yet again.

For some reason, Nikol doesn’t forget.

She keeps hunting, sending some of “her girls” out, farther and farther away, even uses messenger birds to keep communication up. Her girls find nothing, then nothing, then nothing again- but  _ then _ they find stories of a sudden funeral service for a coastal guard in Rokrund, murdered in the dead of night. Despite prejudice or common rumor, civilian murder is not  _ terribly _ normal on Noxian soil. But ultimately, with no witnesses, the coincidence leads nowhere. It’s only on the way back that one of Nikol’s girls finds a real clue- a Varju woman with a Targon button and one less pressed round of pale face makeup. Both are exact matches to Dream Boy, his discarded clothes with their remaining tell-tale buttons and his pallid skin.

“‘I have a suspicion the target is Lunari,’” Nikol reads aloud, standing proudly before Sett in his office, bathed in the golden dance of the lanterns around them. “‘A Targon assassin who needs to cover something on his face. A tattoo, perhaps. If this is true, it would explain how he’s so good at hiding. The Lunari have done so for longer than anyone could care to remember.’”

“I thought the Lunari were wiped out,” Sett frowns. His feet are kicked up on his desk as he leans back in his chair. He doesn’t quite buy it. “And even if they weren’t, I don’t know, Nik. It’s a stretch.”

She frowns, fastidiously rolling her scroll back up. “It’s the best information we’ve gotten about him so far.”

Sett rolls his sore shoulders. He’d had his fair share of fights today, showing off as usual. “Don’t know why you’re so obsessed with the guy. Just give it up, Nik, we’ve got plenty of others comin’ in.” He feels tired and annoyed just talking about Dream Boy.

“ _ You  _ were obsessed with him,” Nikol snipes. She crosses her arms. “What happened to all your bravado, huh, big boss? Never knew you to give up on something like that.”

It pisses Sett off to be talked to like that. “Why don’t you shut your trap? I had better things to worry about. What’s  _ your  _ excuse? Don’t have enough to do around here?”

“No,” Nikol immediately hisses, stance widening. She’s on the defensive. Sett rests his arms on his chair, feigning indifference, but his claws dig into the wood. “I’m doing fuckin’  _ extra _ , going out of my way for this and-”

“I didn’t ask you to,” Sett interrupts. He leans back more, looks down his nose at her. “Fuck you doin’ all this for, Nik? You got a thing for men that play hard to get? ‘Cause this guy’s really gotta be giving you a run for your money, huh?” He can feel a tiny splinter press against the pad of his thumb, inconsequentially threatening.

“Fuck’s sake, Sett, it’s not even about him.”

Sett looks at her, nonplussed. She won’t meet his eyes, staring at her roughened boots on the even more scuffed floor. Her long blonde hair in the lantern light looks like straw about to catch fire. Her face is a mottled mess of sickly grey and furious red, and suddenly, with a weariness that reaches his bones, Sett understands.

“How long, Nik.” It’s barely a question.

“Long enough,” she says quietly. Her scroll is crumpled in her shaking fist. Sett waits. Nikol ducks her head as if a sweep of hair could hide her swelling shame. The straw is ablaze. “Since the first night,” she whispers. “I loved you since our first night.”

Sett doesn’t even remember it. He closes his eyes to keep out the smoke pouring from her broken, molten heart. Tries to summon the gentleness he’s never had. “I don’t love you, Nikol.” It doesn’t work.

“I know.” She is burning away into ashes in front of him and he can’t do a thing. Doesn’t know if he wants to. “You don’t love anybody, Settrigh.”

Nikol leaves, and a little piece of Sett fades alongside the echoes of her footsteps falling away. They don’t talk anymore to each other about Dream Boy, or much of anything, after that.

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

For the last month or so, Aphelios has been a vagabond in the winding streets of Noxus that twist and split and flow back together like veins. He feels like a virus, tumbling this way and that to avoid the immune system presenting itself in the form of too many looks, too many questions. He can’t find work and resorts to thievery to avoid starvation. He briefly talks to Alune only once in this time. He doesn’t know what it is about this place, what about it pulls him in so viciously. Aphelios can’t tear himself away to go home and restock his supply of noctum.

Part of it is undoubtedly the fact that he has spent the better part of a summer here and has nothing to show for it. Nothing to bring back to the elders so hungry for Diana, so entranced by a woman so long-since disappeared she may as well be dead and buried by now. Aphelios is not meant to come back with nothing, he knows. All he has is blood on his hands and a head full of Noxian nonsense. But this nonsense is so  _ addictive _ . Even when Aphelios spends days doing nothing but walking, listening to passing conversation, he always comes to the same conclusion: he will miss this when he leaves.

Whenever that may be, though, becomes less and less clear with each passing night. You just can’t hide in Noxus as an outsider and not run into trouble eventually. But for Aphelios, this trouble is far from what he would have ever expected it to be.

He’s hungry- almost always is these days- and has already plotted a quick route in and out of a stout little restaurant. Of course, he could always scrounge for the picked-apart leftovers and leavings thrown in the bins out back, but Aphelios thinks he can get away with this easily enough. He’d snuck some thin string under a windowsill earlier in the day, looped around the latch in such a way that he can open it from the outside. He could always break the latch, but finds himself reluctant. Who is he to cause property damage to people who’d done nothing wrong, especially when he was already going to steal their food? Even this seems strange to him, and doesn’t sit quite right. He pushes the feeling away, down into the crying maw of his aching hunger, and brushes his fingertips along his knife handle for comfort.

The night is so dark it’s almost cloying, and the tepid heat from the bins doesn’t help. Aphelios shuffles forward as quietly as he can. Buildings yawn around him, tall and wide and sleepy. The restaurant squats beneath an overhanging complex, a huge balcony giving him convenient cover. There’s one door on this face of the complex, with its own bins on either side, but it hasn’t opened in a very long while and Aphelios decides to take his chance  _ now _ .

He creeps up to the window, fumbling for the translucent string in the dark. Once in his grip, he pulls as slowly as he can. The window creaks as it begrudgingly opens. Aphelios is calm, has been through much more dire situations than this, but he keeps his ears as finely tuned as possible to every little noise in the quiet city around him. Nothing jumps out to get him as he pauses, window propped up in his palm. He breathes in- breathes out- grasps the windowsill with his free hand and gracefully hoists himself up and into the pitch-black restaurant, landing silently on the cold stone floor a few feet away.

Aphelios has nothing to follow now but his sense of touch. He guides the window back down, a little quicker this time to keep the creaking at bay. His first cautious sweeps of hands and feet around him make him glad he vaulted himself forward- if he had simply dropped from the windowsill, he’d have crash-landed on some kind of bulky metal appliance. Aphelios keeps his hands moving in a gentle radar around him, noting each and every brush of surface. If he has to make a quick exit, it’ll be good to know where  _ not _ to run right into. His eyes strain to adjust to the complete lack of light, but it’s in vain- all he can make out are shadows upon shadows, crowding around him and eagerly waiting for him to stumble and fall into their shapeless arms. He hits a wall, turns, gently clinks a pot against its lid, shies away, and finally finds what he’s looking for- a simple pantry. It’s locked, but it’s nothing the slender end of his knife can’t pick free. Then it’s finally open.

Aphelios runs his hands along the pantry’s contents desperately, grabbing whatever he can haphazardly define from shape and texture alone. His fingernails clink against glass jars, mixing with his quickened breaths to fill the kitchen with their noiseless cacophony. He knows, objectively, that what he’s doing is wrong. But it’s this or get sick from garbage, he tells himself, and grabs what he’s certain is some kind of pepper. It only takes a few seconds total to shove that, a few hard buns, and a handful of flat, paper-wrapped chocolate bars into his pants pockets, but it feels like his trespass clenches its anxious fists tighter and tighter around him with every breath he spends rummaging through someone else’s food. One more soft, round thing is hastily stowed away- he  _ thinks _ it’s another vegetable- then Aphelios is racing around invisible obstacles back to the window, one foot up on whatever’s beneath it-

And there’s a kid about to climb in, right in front of him.

He’s so surprised that he forgets to perform the normal human reaction of freezing in his tracks, and instead bodies the kid headfirst right back out.

The kid, to their credit, also seems too shocked to let out any noise louder than a punched-out  _ “hough-?”  _ The two of them tumble to the pavement, barely missing crashing into the bins. The window whines before it thunks shut again. Aphelios feels a nasty scrape tear its way up an exposed ankle but ignores it in favor of getting to his feet as quickly as possible, eyes darting everywhere to assess the situation. One hand has already flown to his knife.

The kid scrambles up far less quickly, groaning and pressing a palm to a surely bruised chest. “Shit’s sake,” they wheeze, fixing Aphelios with an impressive glare for someone half his size. “Ain’t gotta break my ribs just for tryin’ to... tryin’ to…” They trail off, staring openly at the stranger in front of them, then  _ very  _ pointedly at his knife. Warily, they raise their hands to hover limply in the air. “Alright, alright, I ain’t tryin’ to cause trouble, mister, just wanted a bite. No harm no foul, right?”

Aphelios blinks, then realizes how he must look to this child. Wild-eyed, roughed up from the fall. Dirty from days spent unable to sneak a quick wash-up somewhere. Pockets heavy with newly-squished food. Nothing else but a knife. He quickly removes his hand from the handle and shoves it into his pocket- the kid visibly startles and starts backing away- but he pulls out one of the hard buns and holds it forward in a clear offer.

Why Aphelios hasn’t run by now, he doesn’t know. Maybe it’s because, as he gets a clearer look, the kid doesn’t seem much better off than he is. Long ratty hair covering a thin face, too-big clothes that are already worn right through in the elbows and knees. Their shoelaces don’t match. Maybe Aphelios is human after all. The kid snatches the bun and wolfs it down in just three bites. His lungs feel too small.

Aphelios walks and settles to the ground with his back against the uncaring wall of the complex across from the restaurant, emptying his pockets. A single flickering torch above the nearby door lights up the array. One yellow pepper, a bun for him, an array of baking chocolates, and an unidentifiable pink fruit. The chocolates are barely sweetened, but as the kid plants themselves next to Aphelios and greedily digs in, they don’t seem to have the privilege of caring.

“Can you talk?” the kid eventually asks, mouth full of their half of the mild pepper.

Aphelios shakes his head, breaking off a square of chocolate to eat. He can’t really taste how bitter it is, so he doesn’t mind it. ‘Mute,’ he signs, but the kid just waves their hand in dismissal.

“Sorry, I can’t understand hand signs.” They really do sound sorry about it. “I couldn’t stay in school long enough to get to it. You ever go to school, mister?”

Aphelios shakes his head again.

The kid picks at the hem of their jacket. “That’s too bad. School’s pretty fun, I guess. I had to leave ‘cause dad said so.” They wrinkle their nose and take another too-big bite of pepper. “Dad said we ain’t got any money for it, but he’s the one that lost all of it. That’s why Jack goes to the games now. You know about the games?”

Aphelios wonders if he will ever nod his head again.

“Aw, the games are  _ brutal _ .” The kid kicks their feet together in their dirty shoes. “But if you win you get lots of money ‘cause the guy who runs it is  _ loaded _ . Jack’s my big brother and someday he’s gonna win and take me away from dad.” They puff up, proud. “Jack goes to the games and he just watches. An’ every day he comes back and he knows some new move, an’ he practices and gets stronger every day too!”

Aphelios offers the kindest smile he can muster from the heartache steadily beating inside of him. How judiciously, he wonders, can you take away an innocence?

“I’m too little to go to the games,” the kid continues matter-of-factly, and it nearly breaks Aphelios’ composure to look at such a fractured childhood right in the face. “But I bet you could, mister. Jack wrote down the address and everything. Do you want me to go get it for you?”

If only to give a little more meaning to this child’s life, Aphelios finally nods, and the kid takes off with a grin, leaving behind a man feeling much less put-together than he had when he was just one lonely person, looking for something to fill his stomach. Now, there’s a hole in his chest he can’t fill, dug by a legion of lonely people, and he can’t help but suspect that the digging started a long, long time ago.

He tips his head back to look at the sky, but there’s nothing but a flat concrete balcony stretching above him.

The kid isn’t gone for long, and Aphelios manages to keep himself from slipping deeper into his thoughts during their absence. A single grubby piece of paper is folded into their small hand, and they triumphantly present it to him like it’s more prestigious than a thousand of the world’s shiniest golden trophies.

“Jack don’t need this no more, so you can have it, mister. My dad’s pissed that I’m out so late so I gotta go back.” They rock on their feet. “Thank you for the food. You’re real nice. You gonna stick around here?”

Aphelios shakes his head no, and a pang ripples through his ribcage at the disappointed look that spreads across the child’s face.

“That’s too bad. ‘S not all shit ‘round here, you know. There’s lotsa kids like me and they’re fun to play with, even Jack’s fun and he’s already fifteen an’ all. Maybe I’ll see you again someday, mister, and we’ll all play together. My name’s Micah, by the way.” They stick their little hand out, pinky extended. “Don’t forget it, okay?”

‘I won’t,’ Aphelios mouths, and tries to hide how badly his hand has begun trembling as he pinky-promises. ‘Micah.’

Micah seems satisfied with that, and slips back into the quiet bloodstream of Noxian night with nothing more than a final wave.

Aphelios unfolds the paper to distract from the tides of grief making their steady way through his wailing heart, the overwhelming sense of loss from a connection that snapped as quickly as it formed, an imprint of innocence that left its sticky, loving fingerprints all over his chest. A forfeited childhood, trailing like a ghost after his own memories. He is going to keep this paper forever and try to never think of it again.

_ In the Catacombs under Spriessen, find the Violet Market. Ask about the Arena. Do NOT fight the boss, and- _

Aphelios can’t believe his eyes. The silence is a roar against the blood rushing in his ears. He throats tightens, nearly cutting him from air, dizzying him as he reads the faded handwriting over and over again.

_ -do NOT fight the silver woman with the crescent sword! You WILL lose! _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been chipping away at this chapter for a while now, so glad to finally be able to share it! as always kudos and comments are appreciated, and i hope you're looking forward to the next one!


	3. spinneret

Truth be told, Sett doesn’t have _that_ much free time. He likes to keep a steadfast composure, likes to make it seem like he has all the time in the world but that every moment spent talking to someone beneath his status is still considered wasted. He really would like it if that were true.

But running a business, however far off the beaten path it happens to be, is very much a fulltime job. Sett’s not made for deskwork and delegates it out whenever he can, but even The Boss has to shuffle the ol’ papers around sometimes. Today is one of those times- stiflingly boring, as stiff as the stacks of paperwork, immovable in the breezeless underground. The heat doesn’t bother Sett- he just goes about his day shirtless as always- but stillness has always had a penchant for driving him crazy. He finds himself more irritable than normal. He snaps more than a few pencils going over the payroll, not because anything was wrong with the amounts, but because Pierz’s neat printing is too damn _small_. The letters crawl like drunken ants across the paper, swimming in Sett’s vision as he struggles fruitlessly to concentrate on them. He realizes he’s read the same line five times in a row and understood nothing. He gives up.

Sett’s back cracks in two different places when he stands, and a third pop comes from a well-needed stretch. The papers will be waiting for him when he comes back, whenever that happens to be. Maybe someone passing by will take pity and do it all for him. He snorts derisively to himself at the thought. The idea of anyone feeling sorry for him is damn near laughable. Sett swipes a small bag heavy with coin off his desk, shoving it into a pants pocket and sauntering his way out of the arena.

It’s never quite empty- the homeless and otherwise downtrodden of Spriessen and further townships often seek shelter in the arena’s comfortless hold. It’s not like there’s any food or water to be found inside. But sometimes simply hiding away from prying and judgemental eyes is respite enough for those who so often have no choice in their own exposure. There’s a young woman with three kids sleeping under benches nearby, close to the archway of the hall that houses Sett’s office and leads further underground. An escape route to further entrapment. As he passes, the whites of her eyes flash in the low torchlight. She is watching him fiercely. While her children sleep, she shall do anything but.

Sett is not gripped with the need to do anything about it. No one is bothering this little family, he certainly won’t, and this mother has not asked for anything from him. Only demanded, with the piercing gaze of the always-grieving, that he grant them this one moment of choke-held dignity. He lets them have it.

The fat, round coins in his pocket feel strangely sharp.

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

Spriessen is, overall, pleasant.

Aphelios is surprised to find something called a “soup kitchen” on his second day in town, which is less of a kitchen and more of an assembly line of sorts, where one starts with a bowl and ends with a hearty stew full of things one could spend all day satisfied with just _smelling_. It’s mostly women who look like the grandmotherly type running the establishment, and it all seems out of pocket. There’s not even a donation tin anywhere in sight. Aphelios is beyond grateful for these strangers’ generosity. When he awkwardly tries to sign his thanks one-handedly, the kind ladies all cluck and puff up like mother hens about how he should come back tomorrow, there will be plenty more to eat, and how he’s so handsome but so skinny, it’s worrying, and to please take care of yourself out there, won’t you, dear?

It makes Aphelios feel funny, as he sits by himself in the little cafeteria of the squat building to eat the fragrant stew. A motherly kind of love. He never had it, never really grew up needing it. He doesn’t think he turned out any worse because of it, but it makes him feel wistful for what could have been. What his and Alune’s life could have been like, to have a set of parents. Some people have three or even four. He’s heard of that kind of thing before. Other people only ever have one, or lose one at some point in the lonely march of life. He thinks of Micah. His brother’s note is tucked safely in the deepest pocket of his trousers.

Aphelios drowns the rest of his thoughts in broth. The weightless paper feels heavier than the entire world.

As Aphelios leaves the soup kitchen, he takes more stock of his surroundings. Spriessen is a lot like Geast, too, all maze-like streets and heavy architecture. It’s brighter here, though. Crimson flags flutter jauntily in the breeze, emerald ivy creeps up concrete, brick, and stone, and yellow flowers burst like flocks of canaries from their window-boxes. There’s a prevalent smell of animals in the air, but Aphelios isn’t bothered with his dulled sense of smell. Stocky little chickens peck between the saffron cobble of the street. Aphelios is amused by the indignant squawking whenever someone gets in their way. Spreissen seems more agricultural, closer to the farming region of Noxus, closer to the earth itself with its stout buildings and more natural hues. Less grey, less oppressive. The people here are louder, a syrupy drawl to their warm voices, and tanned from days spent more often in the sun than not.

It doesn’t escape Aphelios’ notice that poverty continues to be a problem in Noxus, and that there are none of the upper classes residing in Spriessen. But the people are decidedly friendly, taking one look at him and deeming him just as good as one of their own, moving on with their day. He feels nervous, though, self-conscious of the makeup covering his tattoo. He finds himself checking it in every reflective surface he passes. It remains untouched, every time. He remains unassuming.

Aphelios knows, too, that Spriessen is hiding things of its own, and hiding them well. He has yet to see even a hint of the Catacombs he’s been pointed towards. He really doesn’t want to ask around about it- a stranger wanting directions towards a highly illegal underground fighting scene would raise far too much suspicion. He must persevere, be patient, stay low. It occurs to him, suddenly, that he doesn’t want news of his arrival here to reach Diana, either. She could be here. She could be watching this very instant. They had never met, personally, Aphelios long lost to his training by the time she had deserted, but he knew the only thing she kept even sharper than her blade was her mind. She would know a Lunari when she saw one, wouldn’t have any doubt, even if he could walk through throngs of people and not have a single one notice anything about him.

He checks his makeup in the darkened window of a little house he passes. A tiny woman sits on the porch, watching him with pale eyes. She seems frail, and different- and familiar- in a way Aphelios ponders for the half-second before he passes her. Another outsider, calmly placed inside. Letting the currents rush around them, pretending they know the same twisting dance of every other creature swimming at their sides. They don’t make eye contact, but Aphelios feels like the back of his neck is stained with the lavender of her gaze for hours afterward.

Out of hundreds of people, she alone had truly taken notice of him.

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

The Violet Market doesn’t open until nightfall, like most things in the Catacombs, so Sett picks his way carefully through the dark, winding tunnels until he emerges from an abandoned mineshaft on the outermost edge of Spriessen. It’s almost bizarre to imagine what would have happened if the farmers here, both of Spriessen and of neighboring Sonnberuht, hadn’t literally revolted against the mining companies decades ago. Pitchforks and torches and all. The companies had bullied their way in, all for a few measly veins of silver, and they were bullied right back out. The veins have been stripped clean by locals by now, anyway, the metal going straight to their handmade jewelry businesses. His ma has one of those now-antique necklaces, a gift from her dear son, one of many attempts to soothe deeply buried guilt. Guilt that has become determined, lately, to un-bury itself.

Sett stands still, just for a moment, outside the dilapidated wood of the old mineshaft. The forest that was cut into a clearing around it has started to crawl steadily back to what it once owned, but it’ll be paused, soon, by autumn. The leaves of the trees haven’t yet begun their metamorphosis into flame. Their soft green light is cool on Sett’s skin, a touch he has felt for years, and will feel for years more, no matter how many of the leaves burst ruby and gold and fall to be buried in their diamond shrouds of winter snow. As long as the trees stand tall, there is a place he can go where it is quiet, and still, and alive, all in ways he is not. The forest dwarfs him, holds him in the cup of its mossy palm, and makes him feel small. It’s the only thing, besides his own mother, that can.

The green always reminds him of Ionia, too. Green in Noxus is rare beyond its outskirts. But back in Ionia, the colour is so soaked into the landscape you could get sick of it were it not so wretchedly beautiful. Every hue, from emerald to pine to honeydew, swirls through Sett’s mottled memories. Olive waltzes with seafoam as jade watches in serene contemplation. Darts of coral-crimson and periwinkle tumble through their dizzy dance. The Ionian sun thrums just beneath Sett’s skin, honey-sweet and dazzlingly golden.

He misses it, but Ionia was no place for Sett, no place for his ma. No place for broken hearts or a bastard son, a son that spends too much time standing alone in places that will never let him feel anything but lonely, a son whose love is polished with the shine of easy lies and bloodied knuckles. A son who’d filled his wishing-well with everything he’d ever thought he wanted to be, but whose bucket now comes up empty and dry.

The grass whispers softly beneath his boots as he starts his walk towards Spriessen, lost in thought.

The first thing Sett always notices when he enters the town is how sandy it is. It’s peculiar that an agricultural site would be so dry- but the sand really comes from far west, vast plains with sparse trees and whip-strong winds that stir the grime into action and sweep it across Noxus like the broom of a disgruntled god. Sandstorms bellow across Spriessen every few years, and crops are lost. But farther east, the farmers say, the winter rainfall is worse. Rots everything, turns the dirt into sticky, ruined mud, then chills it all to death. At least with the occassional dustings of sand, you can just add water, rinse the dirt off the buds. When everything around you is drowning, there’s nothing you can do but hope you remember how to float.

Sett remembers monsoons in Ionia, how his childhood home would flood but his mother would always keep her head held high. She would gather him in her arms and hold him as the water rose. She’d pet his hair and smooth his ears, flattened to his skull in fear. The river would be halfway up the stairs when the rain stopped. He’d be snotty from crying into his ma’s chest, and it would cling to her dress but she wouldn’t care. She would call him her brave little wolverine. Then she’d get up and start salvaging whatever she could. After two floods, everything they ever deemed important stayed on the second floor.

The house collapsed, eventually, just like the shores of Ionia against the immovable iron of Noxus. Too many pushes from forces beyond their control. That was when Sett emerged from the Ionian rings like a great lumbering animal leaving its winter den. Hibernation was over. Straight into the belly of the beast they went, leaving Ionia behind for its oppressors. A betrayal against a land whose people never loved them anyway. A stab to the back of a nation that had already buried so many knives in their own. A nothingness that passed like a single grain of sand in one of the storms that would blast the concrete walls of their home in Spriessen, determined to find the smallest crack and break free, break everything away, explode and cry out into the vacuum of existence that it, after all, had mattered.

But no. Their grain of sand had found its niche and stayed firmly inside, as the winds howled around them, moving nothing at all.

Sett scuffs the toe of his boot on some gritty chicken feed already well-scattered across the cobbled street, watching the way the chickens complain, bobbing and weaving their way expertly through exasperated pedestrians. These birds eat rocks to help them digest the rest of their food. It’s ridiculous. This is the evolutionary trait they’d perfected? A tolerance for _rocks_?

He buys a flask of chilled mead from a nearby vendor and downs it, pointedly ignoring the irony.

Then he chokes and spatters it all over himself and the pavement, because Dream Boy is standing right in front of him.

─── ✧ ☽ ✧ ───

Aphelios watches, stunned, as that guy from months ago makes an absolute _buffoon_ of himself in public.

“You-!” the man gasps, oblivious to the politely disgusted passers-by giving him a wide berth. “You’re alive! Oh, man, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Aphelios regards him carefully. ‘Why would you think I wanted to be found by you?’ he signs.

The guy- Sett, that’s his name, right- tries to pat his clothes dry with his hands. He at least has the decency to look a little embarrassed now. “Ah, well… we gave up ages ago, so I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Aphelios is acutely aware of the people in the street around them. Even though, in this little marketplace, they’re mostly minding their own business, talking amongst themselves and bustling about, he can still feel watchful eyes on them. It makes the hairs on the back of his neck raise, anticipatory, ready to strike. He steadies himself.

Sett keeps talking and scrubbing fruitlessly at his stained clothes. “Found out what you did at that inn, then you disappeared off the face of the planet. Best lead we had was that you’re _Lunari_.”

Aphelios’s heartrate spikes, sharpens his eyes and ears. His own breathing is in pinpoint focus. The world saturates itself tenfold as every last instinct trained into every last cell of his body bursts into action.

“That’s ridiculous, though, ain’t it?” Sett laughs. “Lunari got nothing to do all the way out here. _I_ thought they’d all died out by now anyway. Hokey ol’ religion.”

Something adjacent to anger swirls in Aphelios’ chest. But anger never suited an assassin. He tempers the fire to something colder, something elegant and deadly. He doesn’t give Sett a response, just looks at him and hopes Sett sees him, in this moment, as the killer he was raised to be. Not some drinking pal to joke around with, not some conquest, not someone to impress or flirt with. He hopes Sett blinds himself with the moonlight streaming from his burning gaze.

Something clicks. Sett pales, shifts in place. “Wait. _Are_ you-”

Aphelios bodily shoves Sett out of the street, into a tiny alleyway, and slaps a hand over his mouth before he can even think. His other hand is gripping his knife. He doesn’t remember moving it there. His heart is pounding like a war drum. He grips Sett’s face as hard as he can and glares, nostrils flared. He releases his knife only to jaggedly sign, ‘Don’t ask questions whose answers will get you killed. Understand?’

Sett, back against the rough wall, takes more than a moment to respond. His face is flushed beet-red. Slowly, he nods- as best as he can with his face in a death grip, anyway.

Aphelios lets him go. ‘Good.’ The cat’s out of the bag now, though, and Aphelios’ thoughts race trying to figure out what to do with this guy. He’d said “we.” The best lead “we” had. More people than just Sett were at least suspicious of Lunari activity in Noxus, even if they didn’t believe it. Aphelios curses himself. He should have curbed his temper more, let on nothing, let Sett keep on believing that the Lunari were just a story from an era long since passed. His emotional regulation is far too out of practice. He slipped up and now he gets to pay the price. And the price might be Sett’s life.

Aphelios is still crowded up in Sett’s space, controlling the moment. Sett isn’t wearing a shirt. Aphelios’ eyes land on his bare chest, meaning to look for a sign of a racing heart, but the sight of two gentle curving scars there, mirrored and precise, tips his entire world on its head. His throat tightens. The blood that rushed cold like a river through his veins is now thunderous in his ears.

Sett is like him. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but all that comes out is a hoarse, shaken exhalation.

There is absolutely no way he can kill Sett now.

Aphelios meets his eyes. Well. Time to take a chance instead. ‘Do you know where the Catacombs are?’

“The _Catacombs_?” Sett bursts, tension rushing from him like water from a broken dam. “Jeez, if that’s all you’re looking for you could’a asked me months ago. I live there!”

Aphelios feels distinctly faint. Too many puzzle pieces are falling into place at once here, too many strings winding their ways between himself and this strange halfling man, tightening like corset laces to leave him breathless. ‘You live there.’

“‘S’what I just said, yeah.” Sett is gaining his self-assurance back quickly, now that he finally has something Aphelios wants. “Wanna go?”

‘Now?’

“What, you got big plans on the run here, hotshot?”

Aphelios fixes him with another pointed glare. ‘You want your throat slit?’

Sett holds his hands up in mock surrender, feigning ease. Aphelios can see that his muscles are still tensed in anticipation. “Can’t say that I do. I’ll take you there, no questions asked, alright?”

‘And no passes at me, either.’

Sett goes a little pink. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He lifts a hand, pauses awkwardly, then hastily lifts it to scratch the back of his head, turning swiftly towards the other end of the alley. “Well, come on, then. It’s not far, but- well, you’ll see. First-timers tend to be last-timers without a guide.” He looks over his shoulder, sheepish. “And, uh.. what’s your name?”

Aphelios considers him. Thinks about the scars on his chest. Another string wraps itself around him. ‘Aphelios,’ he finger-spells.

“ _Aphelios_ ,” Sett tries, beaming when he nods in approval. The sound of his name in someone else’s voice is entrancing, liquor-sweet and heady. “It suits you.”

Aphelios fights down his own shyly budding smile, ushering them along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope y'all liked the update! it's a little shorter than the first two chapters but with the next bit i have planned it was best to cut it off here.


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